Our upcoming July/August 2022 issue is focused on crossroads, both in your professional writing life and your work-in-progress. WD would love to know what the most pivotal moment in your writing life has been!

Our formal question: What has been the most pivotal moment in your writing life thus far?

I kind of always wanted to be a writer—my mom still has a copy of the first story I ever wrote when I was age 5 about a mouse who fears he will be celebrating Christmas alone only to be surprised by a friend’s company.

I’d always loved writing, but editing? It’s something I fell into. I worked as a student editor for my university’s newspaper and held a staff editor position for our literary magazine, but I really loved my job working in our student center’s tutoring center. That’s where I was able to work with people one-on-one with their writing and show them what was great and what could be improved.

I didn’t really seriously consider that love until after a workshop during my MFA program. We were reviewing another student’s story, one that I really loved, but no one seemed to get what the story was saying. I was frustrated—the conversation got a little heated as I argued with my classmates. At the end of the class, the writer was able to speak to our conversation and said that I was totally on the right track. When I tell yinz I felt smug…

After class, the author of the story pulled me aside and asked me if I’d ever considered being an editor. 

“You’d be great at it,” I remember him saying. “You always seem to know what the writer wants to say, even if they haven’t quite gotten that on the page yet.”

I realized that the editing side of my brain can be a huge asset when it comes to approaching a story during my revisions. I’m able to take a step back and look at it critically, the way I would someone else’s work, and use that editorial eye to elevate my work to the next level.

What has been the most pivotal moment in your writing life thus far? Share your answers with us in the comments below for a chance to be published in the July/August 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest. Here are the guidelines:

• Provide an answer to the question “What has been the most pivotal moment in your writing life thus far?” in the comments below.
• Answers can be funny, weird, poignant, thought-provoking, entertaining, etc.
• Remember to include your name as you would like it to appear in print.
• Deadline for commenting this time around is April 8, 2022.
• Only comments shared below will be considered for publication, though feel free to share your answers on social media and tag us @WritersDigest

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